From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Fri Jan 26 2001 - 09:59:16 MST
In a message dated 1/26/2001 7:41:52 AM Eastern Standard Time,
d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au writes:
<< They are being used already,
after all, in Japan, France (the Super-Phenix), and for all I know Israel
and Iran. I get really really nervous about machines that make plutonium,
even if burning it produces power that's too cheap to meter. (Cheap crack;
sorry.)
Damien Broderick >>
The bad thing is, for economic, and policy choices, governments and industry
have back-burner-ed the examination of proliferation-resistant reactors.
There are a few like Argonne Lab's 'once-through' urnaium oxide reactor that
poisions plutonium formations as it processes uranium; as well as the
Canadian Candu reactor that utilizes Thorium ²³³ as reactor fuel. The point
is what kind of power sources can be put into place that are affordable,
reasonably easy to run, and can make a profit?
The answer seems to point away from nukes because it takes so much investment
to assemble these plants and then have to watch out for radiation releases.
Possibly, according to a recent article in New Scientist, we may begin to see
crops raised for fuel for cars and power plants, for a large fraction of our
needs. The point of the article is that the economics may finally be right
(though many will scream that it will be forever uneconomical).
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